Bone Key
This island-jewel city,
Void of native life:
A drone-tended tomb.
Her streetlights flash,
Green, yellow, red;
Green, yellow, red.
The sound is the sound of the surf—
No one’s home. Once
Her stoneskinned streets
Clanged with sail-stitchers,
Captains and cigar-hands,
Her beaches stunk of fish.
Hemingway does not live
In her Hemingway museum,
Nor Truman in her navy base,
Nor Stevens in her county court.
Her mortals, like Tolkien’s elves,
Flew the city they raised,
Leaving charming buildings,
Streets and flowers and plaques,
Sun and rain and quiet—
A busy buzzing quiet, but—
All this buzzing’s but
The jeweled flies, come
To check her out. America,
A drone, a corpse or a museum.